Molting the Mortal Coil

After confirming the second discovery, he focused his attention back upon the first. The blocky grey shapes he’d seen from a high altitude had indeed turned out to be signs of civilization. Unfortunately, it looked like he was already too late. Large blocky structures made of stone and metal. They would seem quite foreign to any other resident of the Cultivator World, but to Sage it looked like concrete with steel rebar poking out from the rubble. Only, the buildings had shapes that would be unusual on earth. Instead of squares or rectangles, the buildings were hexagonal. They were still tall pillars or columns, but with six sides instead of four. The same trend continued on into their roads, always having three way intersections, like the corners of tiling hexagons. The glass windows on the sides of the buildings were also hexagons and even ruined signs and billboards followed the same theme. The place was overrun by the odd bluish-green vegetation and the city was mostly in shambles.

As Sage approached he stopped at a pile of fallen rubble and dug through it to get a better idea of the world. He found a piece of a fallen road sign and finally got a glimpse of some writing. The text wasn’t as busy and intricate as eastern styled characters. Instead, they were much simpler and Sage could pick out some repeated symbols. They were also arranged into words more like western styled writing. The ‘letters’ if that’s what they were, seemed like the dissected parts of a hexagon. These people really have a great theme going. Is it religious, or is it just something different in their brains from humans?

He’d never thought about it before, but it seemed to be a human norm to make everything rectangular. Straight lines and ninety degree corner angles. In the natural world, liquids on small scales form into hexagons. For example, snowflakes and beehives. Triangles can also form into many perfectly repeating patterns and shapes, so what is the human predisposition to blocks and squares?

Sage’s idle thoughts came to an end when he discovered his second signs of life. A heavy wave of power washed over him. Strength enough to make him take a step back. Before he could formulate an escape plan, one of the concrete walls to his front exploded. If the explosion had happened just a minute later, he would have been standing in the blast radius. The concrete was instantly shattered into marble sized pieces, smashing against the wall at the other side of the street. He was entering the city through a wide side street, one that seemed the most intact and also with the least amount of open or broken glass windows. Less windows meant less chance of him being spotted, there was no telling who or what might be waiting in those deserted storefronts and just watching everything that passed by on the street.

The pieces of concrete smashed into the opposing wall with enough force to partially destroy it and also to throw up a massive dust cloud. The two Blacksilver Pawns that had been walking in front of him slid into the way of the dust before it washed over him like a wave. The two to his sides and two to his back increased their alertness and surrounded him. Meanwhile the other six that were scouting left their duties and rushed back towards Sage. They’d only been checking the roads, and had been completely caught off guard by the attacker originating from inside a building. Who could have thought the enemy would attack by bursting through a wall?

Putting aside thoughts of a giant juice man, Sage quickly summoned forth the Timeless Eyes and just in time as he saw a steel cable whipping towards his neck. He carefully adjusted his stance and thought about ducking under it. The many mirage images of the future started to shift. No matter how he thought about dodging, it followed him and separated his head from his shoulders. Sage stood frozen in place until just the last moment, throwing his head to the side and bending over backwards to just barely dodge the slowly altering trajectory of the enemy’s weapon.

Even seeing eight seconds into the future, he could only barely dodge the opponent’s weapon. The metal cable reacted too quickly to his attack and changed trajectory as he moved, like it was following him. Thankfully, once he’d dodged the sweeping cable, Sage had enough time to retreat. He kicked the ground, spinning in place as he fell backwards from the dodge. Before he fell flat onto his face, his leg stomped to the side and his foot contacted against the empty space. Putting Cosmic Traction to use and stepping on nothing, allowing him to make an impossible move. Taking off into a run like he was using starting blocks on a track and sprinting away at his fastest speed.

The writhing cable had been particularly hard to avoid as it approached, but once it passed by, it had far too much momentum to change directions and swing back. Instead it smashed into a concrete wall and caused an even greater commotion of dust and rubble. Surprisingly, the sudden assault wasn’t continued. Instead, there was a strange gust of wind, pulling all of the dust from the explosion detonations together. All of the dust formed into a small sphere that looked like it was made from cement, which then swooped through the air and landed on the outstretched palm of a figure that stepped out of the place where the first explosion and the giant cable came from. The cable itself turned out to be a normal steel cable, it had moved with such astounding speed that it turned itself and the concrete wall into small pieces from the impact.

Walking out of the hole in the wall, a humanoid shape turned towards Sage. Now that the dust cleared, the enemy became clear. Well, as clear as could be seen in the many mirage like images that he saw in the future. The enemy wore a mask over his face, a gas mask that looked like a remnant from the first World War of Earth. The circular black lenses completely hid the man’s eyes and where he looked from the outside. He also wore tight black leather pants which had dozens of small silver rings running in a line along the side. He also wore a belt covered in spiked rivets which had long thin chains hanging from it that connected to the rings on the side of his trouser leg. Going with the tight leather pants, the man had no shirt on and instead boasted a lean but defined torso covered in small crosshatched scars. On his hands the man wore at least a dozen silver rings and bits of jewelry. Finally, to finish off the strange look, he had black combat boots with chunky platform soles. In short, he looked like a member of a goth, metal, punk, steam, grind, hard, core, or ~some combination of edgy words~ band. That, or a figure from a horror film.

By the time the man finished stepping out from the hole in the wall and standing on top of a pile of rubble like a conqueror, Sage had already retreated a hundred yards. The Blacksilver Pawns had already converged, four of them surrounding him while the other eight started to walk towards the strange metal performer. A muffled sound came from the man, a deep voice speaking a language Sage had never heard before was obscured by the gas-mask the man wore. Only, at the same time the sound was muffled in the air, the voice was clearly heard inside Sage’s mind. It had an odd echoing sound to it, like the space inside the man’s mask was cavernous and also somehow delivered directly into Sage’s head regardless of the distance.

The masked man kept speaking and Sage immediately felt the source of the pressure now. In his Spiritual Sea the voice was like a storm of black gas, rolling in like a pressure wave and smashing against the wall of his mental fortress. The spirit attack contacted his defenses, but they weren’t even shaken by the assault. There was a sudden rhythmic and light sound from the masked man and he threw his head back, laughing at the situation. Sage had no idea what was being said, but he chose to translate the movement and sounds as, “Bwahaha! An energetic little fish has stumbled into my net! It will be fun filleting you!”

That last bit was what he guessed when watching the strange cutting and swiping motions the man was making. It might also be something about chopping off his private parts, but Sage kept it light-hearted and chose a fishing metaphor to make the fellow less intimidating. Haha, I already avoided your lure, what will you do now?